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Gc 976.602 Ok46k v.1 1726997
M. L
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02293 5081
W. F. KERR
1 - , 4
The Story of Oklahoma City Oklahoma 1.1
"The Biggest Little City in the World"
Written and Edited by W. F. KERR Of the Oklahoma Historical Society AND INA GAINER Of The Oklahoma City Times Editorial Force
VOLUME I
1922 THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO
F 92764.4
.
30- 1943
1726997
CONTENTS
PART I RELEVANT APPROACHES
Them Haleyon Days, Dr. A. C. Scott.
13
Introductory
15
A Cottage for Two 33
The Founding of Oklahoma City
61
PART II
THIE SPREAD OF THE YEARS
The Lot Jumpers. S1
Government Established 99
The Second Opening 121
Boomers Active Again. 133
141
The Active Ten Thousand
151
Choctaw Railroad Enters
161
Fusion and Free Silver
169
The Seekers of Pie 179
On Trail of the Volunteer- 189
Conneil Versus Congress
201
Franchises and Bond Sales
211
Oil and Another Opening. 221
More Business, Less Society 229
In Earnest Abont Statehood 241
253
Sidestepping an Issue. 263
A Gold Pen and a Quill. 273
Polities, Prejudices and Victory
283
New Jerusalem Approved. 303
Coming of the Packers 313
The Capital Achieved 329
A Charter Adopted 345
A Fight Against Expenses 359
A Preacher's Farewell 373
The Central Hundred. 389
Passing of Pioneers 403
The Food Strikers. 415
The City Goes to War 427
Helping to Win the War 445
Prosperity and High Prices. 465
The Results of War 479
Tiding Over 491
V
In Bih and Tucker at St. Louis
PAGE
Dream of a Commonwealth
.
vi
CONTENTS
PART HI
RESUMES, REVIEWS AND CONTRIBUTIONS
PAGE
The Old Home Town. 509
Development of Social and Club Life, by Irene Bowers Sells 523
The Fight for the Capital 5-17
Schools of Eighty-Nine and Their Development, by Mrs. Fred Sutton. 559 569
Vision, Leadership and Faith, by William M. Jenkins.
Oklahoma City's Part in the World War, by Gen. Roy V. Hoffman. 573
A Tribute to Oklahoma, by Sidney Clarke. 583
Making Beauty Spots, by C. A. MeNabb 587
Captain Couch, First Mayor, by H. C. Evans 601
Character of C. G. Jones, by O. P. Sturm. 605
Character of Henry Overholser, hy Elmer E. Brown 615
Seminoles and Colonists, by J. L. Brown 625
Artieles of Confederation. 635
Milling and Grain 641
Business Women's Club. 647
City an Oil Center 651
Gas and Electricity 667
The Telephone Business 669
Lot Titles Investigated. 675
PART IV IN MEN'S MEMORIES
A Propitious Monday 679
In Camp Oklahoma. 687
A Pioneer's Recollections 689
The Oklahoma City Club
Bill Starts a Graveyard 699
703
Colcord Has an Idea. 709
Pioneering in Journalism 711
Hanging Pants and Song Pants
713
A Rushing Bread Business 715
"A Bad Man from Texas' 717
A Lot Jumper Wins.
719
Snaking Houses at Night. 721
For Better or Worst. 723
"Tails Up" Wins a Bride 725
Medical Society Formed
727
The First Newspaper 729
731
The Post Trader's House
PART V MISCELLANEOUS
The City's Constitution 735
The Organic Act. 781
First Opening Proclamation 823
Oklahoma Enabling Act 831
.
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
W. F. Kerr Frontispiece
Former Presidents of the Chamber of Commerce. 17
Residence of E. H. Cooke. 25
Residential Street 25 Oklahoma City's First Settlers 35
Original Site of Oklahoma City
41
A Group of Pioneers.
47
Two and a Beauty Spot 55
Where the Ranch Stock Watered 55
Group of Pioneers. 63
Early Settlers 67
Captain W. L. Couch 71
First Post Office of Oklahoma 75
83
Oklahoma City on April 24, 1889
83
Dr. A. J. Beale.
89
View of Oklahoma City in 1889
95
Captain A. B. Hammer.
101
Present Site of Culbertson Building, Broadway and Grand Avenue.
109
American National Bank Building
123
Home of the Daily Oklahoman
123
W. J. Gault
1:25
O. A. Mitscher
139
Leslie P. Ross.
145
Frank MeMaster 150
153
Main Street, Oklahoma City, 1889 157
Captain E. H. DeFord. 163
171
J. P. Allen.
181
Richard Caffrey
191
Wheeler Park
197
Lee Van Winkle
203
Clifton George
207
First National Bank Building 215
Sectional View of St. Anthony's Hospital 225
State University Hospital 225
The Baum Building 235
vii
Oklahoma City in 1889, Before the Run.
D. W. Gibbs. 117
Nelson Button
Charles G. Jones
٠٠
viii
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
The Continental Building
235
Farmers National Bank. 245
First Methodist Church. 255
Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club. 255
Dr. J. F. Messenbaugh. 265
Oklahoma County Courthouse and Jail 275
Henry M. Scales 285
St. Luke's M. E. Church, South.
291
Federal Building 297
View at State Fair Park. 297
First Presbyterian Church. 305
Former Occupants of the Colcord Building Site. 305
Entrance to the Oklahoma National Stock Yards. 315
Pens at the Oklahoma National Stock Yards 315
Temple B'nai Israel. 323
323
Daniel V. Lackey
331
Main Street of the Bugey Days.
335
Broadway, Looking North. 1910.
341
Whit M. Grant .
347
Central High School
351
Carnegie Library 355
355
Maywood Presbyterian Church 361
First Baptist Church 367
Residence of W. R. Ramsey 367
First English Lutheran Church 375
First Christian Church 375
Skirvin Hotel 381
Oklahoma State Capitol. 388
First Week between California and Grand Avenues 391
View of Skyscrapers from the Wholesale District 395
Residence of C. F. Coleord 399
Residence of If. Overholser
399
Edward Overholser 405
Epworth Methodist Church (Originally Epworth U'niversity)
411
Residence of C. P. Site: 417
Mercantile Building
429
Security Building
429
Catholic Church 439
Byron D. Shear. 447
View on Grand Avenue Looking East from Terminal Building 453
Lakeside Golf and Country Club 459
J. C. Walton 467
Salvation Army Home. 473
Broadway, Looking North, in 1921 481
Y. M. C. A. Building 4.87
Packing Plant of Morris & Company
Huckins Hotel
ix -x
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Ilome of Oklahoma City Club ( Erection begum in 1922) 493
Main Street of an Early Day. 511
Business District from an Airplane 517
Cheyennes and Arapahes Counseling for Cherokee Outlet 525
Chiefs of Cheyennes and Arapahos. 533
Tradesmen's National Bank Building 543
Gloyd-Halliburton Building 553
Liberty National Bank Building 563
The Guaranty Bank
563
Gen. Roy V. Hoffman
575
O'Neil Park 589
Stiles Park
593
Residence of Gen. Roy V. Hoffman
593
Entrance to Wheeler Park.
597
St. Panl's Episcopal Church
607
Patterson Building
617
Santa Fe Depot the Morning after the Run. 627
An Early Day View. 627
Grain Exchange Building. 640
Plant of Oklahoma City Mill and Elevator Company 6-43
Plant of the Plansifter Milling Company 643
Magnolia Petroleum Company Building 653
Scene in Oil Refining District .. 659
Section of Refining Plant of Choate Oil Corporation 659
Home of the Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company 666
Home of Southwestern Bell Telephone Company 671
The Morning before the Run 651
Captain D. F. Stile- 686
II. C. Watton. 695
Plant of Liberty Cotton Oil Company 705
West Main Maternity Sanitarinm. 737
Terminal Building of the Oklahoma Railway Company 745
Masonie Temple 755
The Coliseum 755
Home of Hahn Undertaking Company
765
Mount Saint Mary's Academy 775
Classen Junior High School 775 Security National Bank 785
Empress Theater 795
Orpheum Theater 795 Second Presbyterian Church 805
Christian Science Church. 805
Momnent to Soldier Dead, Fairlawn Cemetery 813
Coleord Building $25
HIerskowitz Building 825
Southwest National Bank Building 833
Liberty Theater 843
XI -XII
PART I RELEVANT APPROACHES
.
The Story of Oklahoma City
"THEM HALYCON DAYS" . BY A. C. SCOTT
When'er I think of '89, its haleyon days around me shine ; its days of spring divinely fair, its days when sand drifts filled the air; its days so hot the hair they'd eurl, its days so cold the snow would whirl, stinging against the window panes, and freezing on the icy plains: days when the sand filled Main street full. and days when Main street was a pool; days and days of every kind, that nowhere else on earth you'd find.
But what did we for weather care? We all were young, the world was fair; something would happen every day, and not in just the usual way. What booted it that lots were jumped, and in the fracas some one bumped: that Seminole and Kickapoo kept hell a-poppin' all night through ? Throughout it all we sang and danced, and Sundays to the Weaver pranced, ostensibly of course to dine, but in reality to shine, in raiment exquisitely new, to let the proletariat view-the ladies decked from top to toe (much more than they are now. I trow). in silks and satins, unseen hose, the men all moulded in their clothes.
To ice cream socials, too. we went, to that extreme on pleasure bent : though chaperoned with eagle eyes, love "car- ried on" with small disguise, and many a marriage altar fine. was just a dream of Eighty-Nine. And who'll forget those autumn days, all shrouded in their purple haze, as if all na- ture's course stood still, to put away the coming ill? But when grim winter came at last. fast riding on his borcan blast, our flimsy shacks shook in the gale, the howling winds drove sleet and hail. But did we whine, or knock. or wail ? We took the hanner and the nail. and boarded up the shrick- ing eraeks, and papered the inside with tacks.
And while the winter ripped and roared. we served upon
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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY
our festal board such dainties and such viands rare that lords might envy us our fare. Oh, who'll forget those wondrous eats-the market places on our streets with long festoons of luscious quail, or prairie chicks and cotton tail, of squirrels gray and squirrels red, of mallards dropped from overhead; of pinioned deer with spreading fronds, of turkey gobblers bathed in bronze-not them that strutted barnyard floors, but lived in nature's out-of-doors ? Oh, well. I reckon it is best, that we've outgrown that far-off West; but sometimes when I'm tired and bored, run down by auto and by Ford, I take a backward look and say, as one did say who's gone his way, "Of all the times I've ever seed, them was the halycon days indeed."
INTRODUCTORY
A conclusion that organized effort is ninety-nine per cent responsible for the present stage of maturity of Oklahoma City is inescapable after one has made a detailed study of out- standing events of these thirty and two years. This statement . may bear a shade of triteness: it may exhibit the carmarks of the prime principle of city building written into books on that subject ; it may be casually dismissed as a foregone conclusion reached by regimes and generations of constructionists since the peopling of the Middle West began; but, in this instance, it is re-enlivened and re-envisaged for a purpose of compari- son. It is a notable fact that some heavily peopled communi- ties of the Southwest have attained levels of municipal supremacy directly and almost solely as a result of the en- deavors of a few superior men associated for business pur- poses. Their number is small to be sure and their accomplish- ments are marvelous exceptions to the well-established rule of organization. Nearly every prosperous community has had" its foundation laid by a few men associated for business pur- poses, but eventually masterful things have been accomplished by a combination of several of such associations whose pur- pose was beyond immediate individual profit and involved the common weal. This is the fundamental principle, of course, of society, of cooperative education, of religions enterprises, and of free government.
The mental largeness of a few men, the money-making capacity of a few men, the diekering and negotiating instinet of a few men, and the promotion predilection of a few men, -- ungrouped, unorganized, established in shacks and shanties, unrestricted by conventions, squatted on a windswept sage- grassed plain .- ran in grooves ent with their own pieks and shovels; and, when there was increased light upon possibili- ties, these grooves diverged and merged into channels and channels confluenced into streams and streams emptied by their own predestined bent into this sea of business, religions,
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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY
social, educational and political metropolitanism. That, in short, is the history of Oklahoma City. And it teaches that divergences and confluences are essential to the filling of the sea and the replenishment and maintenance of its waters. In- dividual efforts of pioneers produced gratifying results, each separately as a business enterprise. We are pleased to re- fleet the honor that is due them, and frequently we are con- strained to assert that but for them the entire history of the city's twenty latest years might have been so different that perhaps a competitor would have outshone it in glory. In- dividual efforts were substructure material. A few of them could have brought the hundred thousand here; it is not likely that they would have. Inevitably the drawing power lay in concentration, and the hundred thousand came when the draw- ing power was created. The drawing power was the Chamber of Commerce, and to that body this work is dedicated.
Oklahoma city originally was nature favored. Perhaps the thought entered the minds of none, or if any but a few, in the first raw, undisciplined years, that the lines of common- wealths would be so manipulated that the city would lie with- in five miles of the geographical center of a state. It was with- in a five-hour horse trot of the border of Indian Territory and therefore far to one side and close to a river-arched corner of what everybody predicted would become the eventual Okla- homa Territory : that is. the territory as geographies pictured it after all the Indian reservations west of Indian Territory had been opened for settlement. But Nature and the eighty- niners were not in cahoots, because the eighty-niners were ignorant of the polities of the future. If Oklahoma Territory had become a separate state, Oklahoma City. geographically considered, would have had small call for the capital, which Congress already had located at Guthrie: nor would Guthrie have been seenre in that honor. This very fact accounts in part for a majority of the residents of Oklahoma City in later years, disregarding political alliances on the capital issue and standing unitedly in favor of a single state to be formed out of Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory. Nature re- vealed itself in consideration of that issue.
In view of its geographical location, and in disregard of political eventualities, it was destined to become the inter-
:
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S. M. Gloyd, Anton II. Classen, Ed S. Vaught, G. B. Stone, George Frederickson, T. D. Turner, C. F. Coleord FORMER PRESIDENTS OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
d
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Vol. 1-2
19
THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY
section point of two trunk lines of railroad. Several years before the opening in 1889 the Santa Fe had constructed a line north and south through the Territory that entered near Arkansas City, Kansas, and passed into Texas near Gaines- ville. This line lay twenty-five to thirty miles east of the one hundredth meridian and in general it separated the prairies of the west from the timber lands of the east. It was a divi- sion mark between the "short-grass" country and the "sticks." Settlement of the west side of the original Indian Territory, or the Unorganized Territory as it was later desig- nated, of course demanded railroad facilities from the east as well as from the north and south. Probable connections with Texas Panhandle points were in early years not a matter of vital concern, for the wind-stripped Plains were vet climati- vally discredited. One of the first organized industrial efforts of the city resulted in its securing a line of the Rock Island railroad that built eventually from Memphis, Tennessee, to Amarillo, Texas, and split the two territories wide open from east to west as the Santa Fe had done from north to south. The Rock Island, originally called the Choctaw, did not come in a night, nor did it come gracefully and with facility. It came after much diekering and much bickering, after fights between ambitious communities, one of which was Guthrie, Oklahoma City's earliest, most formidable and longest-lived commercial and political rival, and after the travail of hard work and sleepless nights. But when it came, Oklahoma City's commercial position was for the time being secure. It was of debatable tenure, however, for a trunk line of the Rock Island system had paralleled the Santa Fe through the State, passing within thirty miles of the city on the west, and on it, nearly due west of the city, was founded the town of El Reno. This town early gave evidences of rivalry with Oklahoma City and those evidences were enhanced many fold when the Men- phis-Amarillo line was made to intersect the Rock Island trunk line at that point. And this incipient rivalry, more menacing than any the city had faced, explains why the city's big men in the '90s so vigorously celebrated the entrance of the Frisco from the northeast. The entrance of the Frisco, indeed, was the most important event of a decade, if not the one elinching and determining event in all the city's history.
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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY
Sedate, silent and unobtrusive Nature, perhaps better identi- fied by the term Geography, again favored a city wavering and debating in insecurity. In this instance the favor was doubly purposeful, for the railroad builders foresaw the opening to settlement of the big Kiowa and Comanche Indian country, situated in the southwestern part of the territory, and Okla- homa City lay on a direct route between Sapulpa, the Frisco terminus, and the central section of the Kiowa and Comanche reservation.
In a sense, political subdivisions were of secondary con- cern, in the view of the eighty-niners, for the city was located in the center of a fertile agricultural section that embraced contiguous territory of part of the new Oklahoma and of na- tions of Indian Territory and other Indian reservations soon to be opened. They entertained a mild trust in the Santa Fe. expecting active cooperation of its immigration and coloniza- tion departments. The Santa Fe, however, could scarcely be a respecter of municipalities on its line, and the eighty-niners early learned that self-dependence. self-assertiveness and the boldest sort of influential preponderance of effort would get results.
When the coming of the Frisco eliminated El Reno and Shawnee as contenders for municipal supremacy. only Guthrie remained an antagonist. She was a formidable antagonist, be- canse she was the political pot boiler of the Territory, the capi- tal, and the receiver and dispenser of information that came out of Washington where lay the converged ends of the strings of government. She was influential in Congress and in the Governmental departments. During the greater part of Okla- homa City's creative era the republicans were in control of the National Government and Guthrie remained rock-ribbed re- publican, whereas normally Oklahoma City was democratic. It was the seat of democratic organization in the Territory. the chief convention center and the home of several of the party's most astute leaders. Here was published the leading democratie newspaper, The Daily Oklahoman, while in Guth- rie Frank Greer ramrodded the official month-piece of the republican party. The Oklahoma State Capital. Political enmity ever was perceptible. Almost equally as formidable as Guthrie's political influence was its power to command
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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY
railroad investment. During the years that Oklahoma City was pulling tooth and nail for two strategical lines Guthrie was making itself the snug center of a web of no less strategi- eal but less influential and less competitive lines. Six short branches were laid into the capital from as many points along the Santa Fe, Rock Island and Frisco trunks. It looked definitely and permanently secure. Its population grew to over fifteen thousand and always for many years it was a hubbub of business and political commotion.
These skeleton faets will assist the reader to more fully appreciate how extraordinary were the accomplishments of Oklahoma City in that period between the entrance of the Frisco and the removal of the state capital. To seeure the capital Oklahoma City knew that Statehood first was essential. Although an attempt was made in the early '90s to have the Legislature declare Oklahoma City the capital. the matter was permitted to remain in abeyance while the overshadowing issue of statehood was given supreme attention. Had Guthrie been given an opportunity to vote on the question of state- hood, doubtless a considerable majority would have favored two states. On the other hand a preponderating majority in Oklahoma City would have favored a single state. The erea- tion of a single state was the greatest boon that Congress could confer upon the people of the Territories, and it was the one act necessary to assure supremacy to Oklahoma City.
Whether one is a political partisan, affiliated this way or that, does not alter a majority opinion here existing that the city's leanings toward the faith of the democratic party counted for an almost incalculable lot in the capital contro- versy. The conjoining of Indian Territory with Oklahoma Territory gave the democrats of the state a majority of about twenty-five thousand. Political leaders in that party natu- rally were considerate of the claims of a democratic stronghold for capital honors. This consideration was intensified during the first campaign when Charles N. Haskell, the democratic nominee for governor, most bitterly denounced the Guthrie oligarchy and several individual members thereof: and, in advocating a "Jim Crow" law, with characteristic sarcasm and invective, accused republican leaders of Guthrie of har- boring a large negro population for political purposes. Un-
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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY
questionably exaggerations and unqualified falsehoods gained currency during the campaign, and these are not condoned in this screed, but the burden and the bulk of events tended to- ward both political and commercial repudiation of Guthrie. and that fact the most partisan reader is entitled to know. With the democrats in control of the state government it was virtually a foregone conclusion that the huge democratie ma- jority in the state would, when opportunity was presented. take the capital away from Guthrie.
There was more of the South in Oklahoma City than in Guthrie and there was more tolerance among persons from widely separated sections of the United States. Kansas and Texas met on common ground, fought out their differences in a week or a month, and became neighbors and friends. Mich- igan locked horns with Massachusetts and in a magical amal- gamation the one abbreviated the stretch of his r's and the other interjected that letter into his alphabet. Here the best ideas and ideals of North, South, East and West were cast into the mill hopper and that which was best came out as acceptable food and that which was chaff was not even fed to swine. To some extent socially a similar milling process operated in Guthrie, but the politicians would have none of it. The politicians were in control of the destinies of the city and they countenanced no forgiveness, compromise or retreat. Oklahoma City's characteristie and widely advertised spirit of business and social communion was an asset of incalculable value not only in enterprises of municipal or state concern but in modifying and mollifying notions about it in faroff places of the Nation, and from hundreds of these faroff places came no small percentage of the hundred thousand.
After searching through the more or less browned and frazzled-edged records of these thirty-one years the author finds himself in possession of some opinions not previously entertained regarding both policies and men, and of more well- defined opinions about divers things than he formed when transpirings were current. We look upon an event more generously and more charitably after its recession into fifteen or twenty years of history than when the heat and the labor and the turmoil of the day were upon it. By the same vard- stick we measure men and organizations. We sift out the
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THE STORY OF OKLAHOMA CITY
faults of leaders, which usually we find were of minor degree, and land and extol their virtues. We forget their passions and even condone the law infractions of a few in consideration of their gennine worthiness as building and boosting citizens. We are penitent that we made unrighteous charges against associations of men. There are residents of the city today who speak unkindly of these associations out of a thimbleful of tattled information who twenty years from today will regret the speech and wonder how it came about that they permitted the progress train to go by without their taking passage.
The Chamber of Commerce reared Oklahoma City after it reached its teens. A small and unorganized group of men presented it for adoption when it was time to discard sailor collars and knee breeches, when its vocal organs were chang- ing and it had had some scattered and smattered conceptions of a career. Trained directorship was required. In short, if the metaphor may be changed, business prophets saw a long and steep hill to be ascended and they knew that even the first rest level could not be reached unless the team was re- eruited and every puller pulled his prorated share of the load.
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